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Sliding Scale of Party Heterogenity
The Basic Concept There is a sliding scale of Heterogenity vs. Homogenity to be found in every hero party, or more broadly speaking, in every gathering of characters of any type. . Identifying Heterogenity Where any given group lands on this sliding scale, is determined by how varied and diverse the group's member are. In RPGs, this is relatively easily determined: Does the party consist of an elf, a dwarf, a half-orc, two humans and a gnome? Do their alignments range all the way from Lawful Good to Chaotic Neutral? Does every character have his/her own class, no multiple Fighters or Wizards or anything? --> very heterogenous party. Or do all the players play human policemen in (and from) the same city? Are three of them white protestants and one is a catholic latino? All male (except for maaaybe one of them)? Would all of their alignments probably feature "Lawful" plus whatever else? --> pretty homogenous party. . Ramifications in Play In general, Party Heterogenity is not a huge concern, apart from matters of taste and style. Genre can come into it as well, and player preferences. (Many players love to differentiate themselves from the others via their characters - and will more likely pick a new class that is not represented on the table as yet, than add a second Rogue to the group. Exceptions exist, but we find them to be somewhat rare.) . A Maxim for your Prep With regard to issues of Preparation, we have formulated the following maxim: "Play 'all the same' ''if you want to deeply explore a local, limited, or complex setting, play '''all different' ''if you want to showcase vastly different settings, travel a lot, and get into all kinds of situations." . How to Direct Heterogenity With regard to Directive considerations, we have observed that more homogenous parties * are a better fit for Multi Partying * prove less vulnerable to the dangers of a Party Split * encourage more character introspection, and provoke more narrative diversification from players * may be best suited for certain types of challenges (and stories) than others, and suffer in the face of out-of-competence problems or issues. . ... while more heterogenous parties * can (competently) face a broader range of challenges (not just combat, also social, mental, wilderness, sneaky...) * encourage more intra-party disputes and conflict, due to attitudes and viewpoints differing more strongly * profit from the players occassionally taking over various Side Chars * suffer more strongly from single absent players (if the Cleric / Hacker player is missing, forget any real progress in the dungeon / on the run tonight...), let alone Party Splits . . NPCs and Heterogenity NPCs also form groups of characters, and the above issues and consideration hold true for them as well, to a degree. Challenges worthy of further contemplation are: Groups of very similar (homogenous) NPCs Sometimes you need a gang of bikers, a coterie of Ventrue, a squad of hobgoblin mercenaries, or a troupe of travelling bards to feature prominently in your game. In all these cases, the challenge is to portray them as a coherent group in some situations, but also as viable individual characters in certain others. The best advice we have found here is: "Make every member of the group solidly, recognizably the same - but give each of them a unique reason to exist (within the group), as well." This boils down a number of very important points. For once, groups just tend to have a uniformizing effect to them - you travel long enough with that troupe of bards, chances are you're gonna pick up a few of their habits, and they some of yours. So, in order to properly represent a group that wasn't rag-tag put together only a short time ago, you need to develop some group characteristics for them. (All the bikers like a specific sort of beer the best. All the hobgoblin mercenaries have a liking for curved blades. All the Ventrue cultivate a British(esque) accent...) Above and beyond habits, there may be physical characteristics you can describe. Actual uniforms worn by members of the group are the obvious thing that comes to mind, but certain (types of) tattoos, hairstyles, height and/or build ("only the biggest and strongest make it into this squad!") and so on can also work very well. Make these "unifying" factors solid and recognizable, i.e. choose something strong, distinctive, remarkable, something that will easily stay in your players' memories. And then, when you're done with that, start thinking about every individual member of the group. Obviously, you cannot (viably or reasonably) do this for huge groups with dozens of members. But for moderately-sized groups, with up to a dozen members perhaps, with which the PCs will have a lot of interaction (the biker gang the PCs want to join, that Ventrue clique who will be their main allies), this can be done, and it pays off well if you go the distance. When 'fleshing out' members of a rather/very homogenous group, try as hard as you can to think of them as individual persons. Don't go overboard with it, the third bard from the left does not need a three-pages backstory, but try to come up with at least one significant (=very noticable) quirk, habit, attribute, skill, or fact about each of them. Give them a touch of unique personality, and a personal reason to be part of this group. This last part can cross over into the 'meta' areas of the game very easily. Sometimes the "unique reason to exist" within the group can just be "I wanted one of the soldiers to be an abstinent alcoholic, one who is a neat freak, and one who is a hippie who just got drafted and still refuses to grasp the severity of his situation, instead smoking pot on his post all day..." or "I needed one bard who can cook real well, one who is adept at Illusion magic, and one who handles the troupe's animals..." Don't be afraid of them standing out too much with their individual traits - if you did the previous steps right, you will have one or more strong unifying aspects that tie the group together firmly enough to let you get away with a handful of really extraordinary members. (The one biker who never drinks alcohol in a gang who all like Budweiser's and drink it at every occassion is not a problem - he's a gold mine of RP opportunities!) All that was said up to this point are largely matters of Prep and/or Impro, but here is where we switch to Direction, i.e. what you need to do in-game: Don't always portray groups as groups. Have individual members show up on their own sometimes. this gives you the opportunity to give them some spotlight on their own, showcasing their individual personalities, strengths, quirks, etc. Have only half the group show up sometimes, missing crucial members ("Alas, we have to eat what's left from yesterday, because our cook is sadly not with us tonight"). Use the same group member in different situations and contexts, in order to spotlight various aspects of their character ("He is strong and confident on a battlefield, but nervous and clumsy in a courtroom...") and make them really come to life (cf. Exposition, chapter 2.2). Have individual members of the group be at odds with each other, and showcase this in single or small group scenes. Use the players' interactions with these tensions to add to the group's own dynamic. Maybe they will provoke the outbreak of an internal conflict that has been smoldering in the group for some time? Or maybe they must prevent just such a rift, in order for the group to remain functional (and strong) as allies... If you do all this, it will make your NPC groups come to life in previously unexpected ways, and will really help to portray believable (and enjoyable, and memorable) troupes and factions existing in your game world. Groups of very different (heterogenous) NPCs Sometimes you need less of a coherent, homogenous faction to feature in your game, but more of an assortment of mixed-and-matched individualists, who nevertheless form ''some kind of group. It might be a bunch of Rebels in Star Wars (of which one could be a Jedi, one a protocol android, one a tech savvy Wookie guy/gal, one a noble diplomet, etc...), a fellow (or rival) adventuring party in D&D (or Shadowrunners in Shadowrun), a multi-clan alliance in Vampire, the court room of a sizable empire, or any other mixture of very different people who are nonetheless forged together by a common cause, plight, or background. Now, the temptation here might be to treat them as you would a hero party. But this is a dangerous trap, since while it allows you to easily 'build' them (stat them out, equip and describe them in cool ways), it does not actually give you any handle on how to 'run' them in-game. Here are a few pointers for your convenience: Introduce them one-by-one. Have one member of the group (or perhaps two or three for large groups) approach the characters first. Then, next time the group features, have the PCs interact with a different member of the same group. Use which members you introduce, and which interactions are had with them, to compare and contrast them with each other. They are your way to communicate to the players who and what this group is, what they have in common, and what separates them. Inter-group tensions are more frequent, and more close to the surface in such groups, than they are in more homogenouos ones. Expect individual members to want different things, and the alliance between them to be either decidedly more loose, or more fragile, than for other, more uniform groups. Get individual PCs into trouble by involving them in NPC-PC-NPC triangles, and get the whole player group involved by forcing them to take a stance towards (or against) the NPC group, or its individual members. (Examples: Whose side will the adventurers support in the ascendancy struggle between two princes of a Dwarfen kingdom? Will the Bard sleep with the enamored princess even though he promised the seneschal he wouldn't? Can the Wizard resist the temptation to work certain magics down here that would bring him great personal power, but could also turn certain members of the dwarfen royal court against him (and thus perhaps against the whole party) for good?) Give heterogenous groups a greater level of (noticable) fluctuation. Have members leave (or fall, get jailed, betray the group...), and new members join. This also happens for more homogenous groups, of course, but it should be more readily noticable here. ("Didn't you have a Wookie with you last time? Where'd he go?" is much more obviously apparent than "Private Miller hasn't reported for duty in a while...", the latter of which group-affiliated bureaucrats would be quick and sure to discover, but PC groups in (more or less) loose contact with the group might never notice...) Use them to compare and contrast with the PC's group as well. If the PC group has a weakness in, say, being stealthy, or has no Hacker, no one with Dominate, etc., feel free to lean on that and show them what a group that is strong in these aspects can do! On the other hand, no need to outshine the PC group in areas of their own strength - if the PCs have three Wizards in their group, don't necessarily use an NPC group that has four. Instead, allow the PCs their own spotlight, and allow the NPCs to be really impressed by the concentrated magical power the PC can lay down... while getting their own shit done by way of their three fighters and two rogues, perhaps. Contrasting can also be done with regard to group dynamics. Does the PC group have a clear leader, who all the other PCs follow? (Most don't, in our experience) If so, make the NPC group a more 'democratic' affair, and look for opportunities to showcase the advantages and drawbacks of this different organizational style... and vice versa. If the PCs struggle and quarrel amongst each other a lot, consider giving your upcoming NPC group a spin of loyalty and harmony, never without any dissent of course (way too heterogenous for that, chances are!) , but with other outlets, or superior social dynamics that prevent conflicts from actually breaking out in a problematic way or in bad situations. ("In the middle of a dungeon, with everyone below 10 HP, is not the time to sort it out, guys!") What good is this Contrasting anyways, though? Well, for one thing, you can give your player group feedback about their styles and choices in this way. Maybe they learn something from it, and maybe they'll want to change their ways. (If only to the degree that the wizard-heavy group decides to learn a few stealth-supporting spells next time they level up, having now seen what powerful tools secrecy and obfuscation can be in the right situations...) In this way, you can subtly suggest options to them they wouldn't have otherwise much considered perhaps. On another level, contrasting (and likening, which is the opposite technique where you show similarities and parallels) serves the important function of supporting your chronicle's themes. Say, one of your themes is something along the lines of "United we stand, divided we fall". What better way to showcase this at the example of a fellow adventuring group? Especially if quarrels within the PC party are a thing in this game (and the GM should do everything in their power to ensure that they are, if running with such a theme in the first place!), exemplifying how the escalation of such tensions can destroy a party from within, and watching them go from refusing to give each other healing potions to an inner-conflict-induced TPK in a scarily short time, is a powerful tool to drive the message home.